Amit Desai
M.Sc. Thesis Proposal
Supervisor: Dr. Oscar Meruvia-Pastor

"Fighting Isolation in Immersive Virtual Reality using Smartphones"

Department of Computer Science
Friday, January 29, 2016, 1:00 p.m., Room EN 2022

---

Abstract

The motivation behind this research is to produce a synergy between the real world and virtual world and address the ‘isolation problem’ in Virtual Reality (VR) using smartphones.

A major drawback of Virtual Reality (VR) headsets or Head Mounted Displays (HMD)’s is significant isolation of user from the real or physical world, where the users are unaware of their surrounding environment. This has raised concerns for physical safety of users, in both indoor as well as outdoor environments. In case of outdoor environment, the chance of users bumping into an obstacle increases significantly.

The basic idea is to use the embedded devices of smartphones, such as the camera, accelerometer and the gyroscope as an input device along with other external devices like depth-sensing camera or leap motion, in such a way that the user will be aware of their surroundings even when they are
immersed in virtual environment.